Case study
Enviromental Services,
Regulatory Services &
Anti-Social Behavior (ASB)
There have been cross departmental costs
savings achieved through the use of the
GGP following reorganisation of service
by Dacorum.
Applications include the identification of
potentially Contaminated Land from Historic
maps and data from Landmark to reveal
old industrial sites, with British Geological
Survey data helping with risk assessments
of these sites and of private water supplies.
Mapping of radon affected areas, air quality
management zones, waste collection areas
and responsibility for land, trees, grass etc.
all give vital information to services. Use
of GGP GIS also speeds up response to
planning applications, land charge searches
and licensing applications.
The ability to identify key information by
an officer without leaving the office also
reduces the number of site visits required,
speeding up response times and saving
valuable staff time and reducing costs. It also
helps with targeting of scarce resources by
enabling ASB issues and hot spots for pests,
graffiti and dog fouling to be identified.
Information shared with its partners also
enables more effective joint working.
As with many other opportunities
provided by the Information Revolution,
much of this information is now taken
for granted, and it is hard to estimate the
additional costs required or to envisage how
services could work effectively without it.

Estates, Landscape &
Recreation
There have been cross-departmental cost
savings using GGP following reorganisation
of services by Dacorum. Previously each
department was responsible for managing

“GGP is producing an excellent return
on our investment. By allowing users to
access centralised information we are
reducing effort and therefore improving our
efficiency.” John Worts
Corporate ICT Service
Support Manager

allocated public spaces or amenities,
but lack of corporate visibility had led to
duplication of work and inefficiencies.
Improvements in data and the use of GGP
revealed some areas of inefficiency between
different departments and authorities.
For example, the Landscape Department
arranged litter collection in their parks
and open spaces, with a different team
contracted to collect litter on surrounding
streets. Elsewhere it was discovered that
with the Borough, County and Parish
councils all involved in grass cutting,
different contracts covered the some of the
same areas leading to duplication of work
and costs.
Another significant saving being achieved
through the corporate visibility and merging
of services is in the sharing of workloads.
This allows more efficient resource allocation
across different seasons. For example, crews
involved in summer activities such as hedge
cutting, watering and other landscape tasks
can be assigned to different tasks in winter
such as litter collections, salting and gulley
cleaning.
Through the application of GGP’s GIS and
Intranet Gazetteer (eGAZ) within Estates,
Landscapes and Recreation, Dacorum
estimate annual savings of £112,000 through
staff time savings.

“We have identified that through the
implementation of GGP’s GIS and Gazetteer
software the council will save £800,000 a year.
However with the drive to boost efficiency
across the council, the GIS, NLPG data and
other systems from GGP – and in particular
implementation on the web – will contribute
to savings of many millions of pounds.”

The Nineveh
Business
Case
findings
GIS consultants Nineveh Partnership
were employed by Dacorum to produce
a Business Case for extending the use
of GIS within the council. Seen as
the first phase of a wider corporate
implementation, the initial aims were
to agree a standard GIS platform with
central support, move to a single map
base, and provide access to map and data
sets via the Intranet and Internet.
Providing public access to GIS for
map-based data presentation of property
related information was a key driver
required to secure IEG grant monies. The
implementation of eGGP realised other
benefits to Dacorum with improvements
in customer service, allowing information
to be shared with other partners and
elimination of inefficient multiple GIS
platforms and databases.

www.ggpsystems.co.uk

History of GIS at Dacorum
The Business Case: Corporate
The Business Case: Departmental
Nineveh Business Case Findings

Financial benefits
Within the specific eGGP
implementation that Nineveh
investigated, annual savings of £60,000
were identified in addition to one off
savings of £7,000. Initial one off costs
were £73,000, with annual costs of
£12,000. In the first five years savings
amount to £168,000 with ongoing
annual savings estimated at £48,000.
Subsequent enhancements within
Estates, Landscapes and Recreation will
deliver estimated savings of £112,000
with initial costs of £48,000, providing a
five year saving of £512,000.

John Worts, Corporate ICT Service Support Manager
4

Case
Study:
Dacorum Borough Council

Overview

Dacorum Borough Council has successfully implemented a corporate
Geographic Information System (GIS) from GGP Systems. Originally used in
Environmental Health the GGP GIS replaced an ESRI ArcView GIS used in Planning
while GGP’s NGz software was introduced in the Corporate Information Section
to manage the Council’s Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG).

Case study

History of GIS at
Dacorum

“Users are encouraged to share
information, both internally and with
external customers and partners,
and this has led to an integrated
approach to service delivery”

Based in Hemel Hempstead, Dacorum Borough Council’s
first use of GIS dates back to 1995 when a Sysdeco system
was used. GGP and ESRI systems were both introduced to
replace the ageing Sysdeco system, in the Environmental
Health and Planning departments respectively, with GGP
being linked to a Flare Environmental Health System.
In 2005 Dacorum decided to look at the
best ways to extend the use of GIS as a
corporate resource including web-based
GIS. The council employed GIS consultancy
the Nineveh Partnership to investigate and
report on the business case and in particular
the return on investment.
Nineveh reported their findings in June
2005 having determined a strong financial
case for a corporate GIS, with a single map
base and access to maps and datasets via
the Council’s Intranet. It was recommended
that GGP’s GIS should replace ESRI AcrView
and GGP’s eGGP web GIS should be
implemented.
On 11 December 2005, the Hertfordshire
Oil Storage Terminal at Buncefield near
Hemel Hempstead exploded leading to a
mass evacuation of surrounding business

Departmental
Estates

The Business Case:
Corporate

Supporting good practice

In terms of delivering services, the
economic recession has put pressure on
funding and the council’s other main
priorities are to ‘balance the books’ and
focus on customers. The government now
requires more for less so there are real
pressures on deliverables.
Freedom of Information has added
additional demands to local government
and Dacorum appreciates that more needs
to be done to present information to
residents. At the same time the council

www.ggpsystems.co.uk

The Business
Case:

and homes. With the urgent need to
coordinate the emergency response and
then plan remedial work and major site
regeneration, GIS was suddenly put at
the forefront of the council’s information
systems strategy. Buncefield became a
turning point for GIS as its value was
quickly appreciated.

Dacorum understands that having a
positive profile and good reputation is key
to their success as a public authority and this
is at the heart of council’s strategy. Showing
management proficiency by having the
correct facts to hand is important and access
to accurate, up to date information is vital.
In particular the council wants to reduce the
risk of any mitigation and good information
is vital to support the council’s case.

2

John Worts, Corporate
ICT Service Support Manager

needs to save council staff time in gathering
information. By using GGP’s spatial
technology tools, Dacorum expects that it
will be able to deliver more for less.

Access to information
Providing easy access to information
through Dacorum’s Intranet and Internet is
central to improving efficiency and service
levels and eGGP was seen as a vital tool
in achieving this. The council had a lot of
data but it was disseminated and not easily
accessible; for example Planning alone had
over 60 layers of data. As GGP links to most
systems, including Accolaid and Northgate
in use at Dacorum, council records can
be easily retrieved returning significant
benefits.
All plans are now online, allowing
planners and other parties immediate access
from anywhere. Tasks such as street naming
and numbering, land searches and call
handling have become much easier thanks
to instantly available information.

With this improved access to information
through GGP’s GIS and implementation
of eGGP, the power of GIS has been made
widely available. There are significant
benefits corporately as the council can
now look at the ‘whole picture’ allowing
management to identify areas of inefficiency
and make properly informed decisions.

Remote working
The government is encouraging flexible
working and Dacorum is supporting
home working where possible. Through
access to council information over the web
flexible and remote working has become
viable. With 100 staff saving 30 minutes a
day in unnecessary travel, there are both
environmental and economic benefits.
Home working eliminates commuting time
and costs, as well as freeing up office space –
space that can be rented out at commercial
rates to generate income for the council.

Shared services
Dacorum is part of a Pathfinder
programme involving Hertfordshire County
Council and nine local councils. Pathfinder
is a joined up government initiative where
different authorities share infrastructure.
The Hertfordshire partnership was set up to

provide customer focused and sustainable
services through effective and efficient local
government. The centralisation of common
functions such as ICT and payroll reduces
duplication, improves efficiency, and enables
significant savings in procurement through
increased buying power. Hertfordshire
estimate savings in ICT alone are between
£1.5 and £2 million.
Smart GIS is seen as a central component
for the future of such initiatives and the
interoperability inherent to GGP software
is very important. The setting up of 3 data
centres to replace 10 individually councilrun centres, for example, requires easy
open access to data. This means the use
of standard data formats, national address
datasets such as the NLPG and an open
approach by suppliers. Dacorum believes
that GGP Systems has set a standard in terms
of openness and interoperability to which
other suppliers should follow.

GGP provides significant benefits within
the Estates Department by replacing
paper maps and records with a fully
automated mapping and records system.
Much duplication of administration and
paperwork has been eliminated, with the
biggest benefit being in the time it takes to
retrieve data. Savings made through GGP
in Estates alone is estimated at £36,000
per annum. In addition improvements in
customer service are valued at an additional
£20,000 per annum; a combined saving of
£56,000 per year.

Planning
The ESRI GIS had been proving very
cumbersome; plotting work undertaken in
the morning then had to be merged with
the data as part of separate processing task
that tied the system up for hours. The GGP
system is not only more intuitive but it is
dynamic and this eliminates the slow data
processing experienced; it is estimated
that up to £500 has been saved a day in
unproductive staff time which equates to as
much as £100,000 a year.
With GGP’s ease of use and the simplicity
of eGGP, there has been a much lower
overhead in terms of technical support.
Visibility is another significant benefit;
previously planning managers were pretty
much ‘in the dark’ and had little control over
workflows, as activity was simply not visible.
GGP therefore has boosted productivity and
helped improve decision making.

www.ggpsystems.co.uk

3

Case study

History of GIS at
Dacorum

“Users are encouraged to share
information, both internally and with
external customers and partners,
and this has led to an integrated
approach to service delivery”

Based in Hemel Hempstead, Dacorum Borough Council’s
first use of GIS dates back to 1995 when a Sysdeco system
was used. GGP and ESRI systems were both introduced to
replace the ageing Sysdeco system, in the Environmental
Health and Planning departments respectively, with GGP
being linked to a Flare Environmental Health System.
In 2005 Dacorum decided to look at the
best ways to extend the use of GIS as a
corporate resource including web-based
GIS. The council employed GIS consultancy
the Nineveh Partnership to investigate and
report on the business case and in particular
the return on investment.
Nineveh reported their findings in June
2005 having determined a strong financial
case for a corporate GIS, with a single map
base and access to maps and datasets via
the Council’s Intranet. It was recommended
that GGP’s GIS should replace ESRI AcrView
and GGP’s eGGP web GIS should be
implemented.
On 11 December 2005, the Hertfordshire
Oil Storage Terminal at Buncefield near
Hemel Hempstead exploded leading to a
mass evacuation of surrounding business

Departmental
Estates

The Business Case:
Corporate

Supporting good practice

In terms of delivering services, the
economic recession has put pressure on
funding and the council’s other main
priorities are to ‘balance the books’ and
focus on customers. The government now
requires more for less so there are real
pressures on deliverables.
Freedom of Information has added
additional demands to local government
and Dacorum appreciates that more needs
to be done to present information to
residents. At the same time the council

www.ggpsystems.co.uk

The Business
Case:

and homes. With the urgent need to
coordinate the emergency response and
then plan remedial work and major site
regeneration, GIS was suddenly put at
the forefront of the council’s information
systems strategy. Buncefield became a
turning point for GIS as its value was
quickly appreciated.

Dacorum understands that having a
positive profile and good reputation is key
to their success as a public authority and this
is at the heart of council’s strategy. Showing
management proficiency by having the
correct facts to hand is important and access
to accurate, up to date information is vital.
In particular the council wants to reduce the
risk of any mitigation and good information
is vital to support the council’s case.

2

John Worts, Corporate
ICT Service Support Manager

needs to save council staff time in gathering
information. By using GGP’s spatial
technology tools, Dacorum expects that it
will be able to deliver more for less.

Access to information
Providing easy access to information
through Dacorum’s Intranet and Internet is
central to improving efficiency and service
levels and eGGP was seen as a vital tool
in achieving this. The council had a lot of
data but it was disseminated and not easily
accessible; for example Planning alone had
over 60 layers of data. As GGP links to most
systems, including Accolaid and Northgate
in use at Dacorum, council records can
be easily retrieved returning significant
benefits.
All plans are now online, allowing
planners and other parties immediate access
from anywhere. Tasks such as street naming
and numbering, land searches and call
handling have become much easier thanks
to instantly available information.

With this improved access to information
through GGP’s GIS and implementation
of eGGP, the power of GIS has been made
widely available. There are significant
benefits corporately as the council can
now look at the ‘whole picture’ allowing
management to identify areas of inefficiency
and make properly informed decisions.

Remote working
The government is encouraging flexible
working and Dacorum is supporting
home working where possible. Through
access to council information over the web
flexible and remote working has become
viable. With 100 staff saving 30 minutes a
day in unnecessary travel, there are both
environmental and economic benefits.
Home working eliminates commuting time
and costs, as well as freeing up office space –
space that can be rented out at commercial
rates to generate income for the council.

Shared services
Dacorum is part of a Pathfinder
programme involving Hertfordshire County
Council and nine local councils. Pathfinder
is a joined up government initiative where
different authorities share infrastructure.
The Hertfordshire partnership was set up to

provide customer focused and sustainable
services through effective and efficient local
government. The centralisation of common
functions such as ICT and payroll reduces
duplication, improves efficiency, and enables
significant savings in procurement through
increased buying power. Hertfordshire
estimate savings in ICT alone are between
£1.5 and £2 million.
Smart GIS is seen as a central component
for the future of such initiatives and the
interoperability inherent to GGP software
is very important. The setting up of 3 data
centres to replace 10 individually councilrun centres, for example, requires easy
open access to data. This means the use
of standard data formats, national address
datasets such as the NLPG and an open
approach by suppliers. Dacorum believes
that GGP Systems has set a standard in terms
of openness and interoperability to which
other suppliers should follow.

GGP provides significant benefits within
the Estates Department by replacing
paper maps and records with a fully
automated mapping and records system.
Much duplication of administration and
paperwork has been eliminated, with the
biggest benefit being in the time it takes to
retrieve data. Savings made through GGP
in Estates alone is estimated at £36,000
per annum. In addition improvements in
customer service are valued at an additional
£20,000 per annum; a combined saving of
£56,000 per year.

Planning
The ESRI GIS had been proving very
cumbersome; plotting work undertaken in
the morning then had to be merged with
the data as part of separate processing task
that tied the system up for hours. The GGP
system is not only more intuitive but it is
dynamic and this eliminates the slow data
processing experienced; it is estimated
that up to £500 has been saved a day in
unproductive staff time which equates to as
much as £100,000 a year.
With GGP’s ease of use and the simplicity
of eGGP, there has been a much lower
overhead in terms of technical support.
Visibility is another significant benefit;
previously planning managers were pretty
much ‘in the dark’ and had little control over
workflows, as activity was simply not visible.
GGP therefore has boosted productivity and
helped improve decision making.

www.ggpsystems.co.uk

3

Case study
Enviromental Services,
Regulatory Services &
Anti-Social Behavior (ASB)
There have been cross departmental costs
savings achieved through the use of the
GGP following reorganisation of service
by Dacorum.
Applications include the identification of
potentially Contaminated Land from Historic
maps and data from Landmark to reveal
old industrial sites, with British Geological
Survey data helping with risk assessments
of these sites and of private water supplies.
Mapping of radon affected areas, air quality
management zones, waste collection areas
and responsibility for land, trees, grass etc.
all give vital information to services. Use
of GGP GIS also speeds up response to
planning applications, land charge searches
and licensing applications.
The ability to identify key information by
an officer without leaving the office also
reduces the number of site visits required,
speeding up response times and saving
valuable staff time and reducing costs. It also
helps with targeting of scarce resources by
enabling ASB issues and hot spots for pests,
graffiti and dog fouling to be identified.
Information shared with its partners also
enables more effective joint working.
As with many other opportunities
provided by the Information Revolution,
much of this information is now taken
for granted, and it is hard to estimate the
additional costs required or to envisage how
services could work effectively without it.

Estates, Landscape &
Recreation
There have been cross-departmental cost
savings using GGP following reorganisation
of services by Dacorum. Previously each
department was responsible for managing

“GGP is producing an excellent return
on our investment. By allowing users to
access centralised information we are
reducing effort and therefore improving our
efficiency.” John Worts
Corporate ICT Service
Support Manager

allocated public spaces or amenities,
but lack of corporate visibility had led to
duplication of work and inefficiencies.
Improvements in data and the use of GGP
revealed some areas of inefficiency between
different departments and authorities.
For example, the Landscape Department
arranged litter collection in their parks
and open spaces, with a different team
contracted to collect litter on surrounding
streets. Elsewhere it was discovered that
with the Borough, County and Parish
councils all involved in grass cutting,
different contracts covered the some of the
same areas leading to duplication of work
and costs.
Another significant saving being achieved
through the corporate visibility and merging
of services is in the sharing of workloads.
This allows more efficient resource allocation
across different seasons. For example, crews
involved in summer activities such as hedge
cutting, watering and other landscape tasks
can be assigned to different tasks in winter
such as litter collections, salting and gulley
cleaning.
Through the application of GGP’s GIS and
Intranet Gazetteer (eGAZ) within Estates,
Landscapes and Recreation, Dacorum
estimate annual savings of £112,000 through
staff time savings.

“We have identified that through the
implementation of GGP’s GIS and Gazetteer
software the council will save £800,000 a year.
However with the drive to boost efficiency
across the council, the GIS, NLPG data and
other systems from GGP – and in particular
implementation on the web – will contribute
to savings of many millions of pounds.”

The Nineveh
Business
Case
findings
GIS consultants Nineveh Partnership
were employed by Dacorum to produce
a Business Case for extending the use
of GIS within the council. Seen as
the first phase of a wider corporate
implementation, the initial aims were
to agree a standard GIS platform with
central support, move to a single map
base, and provide access to map and data
sets via the Intranet and Internet.
Providing public access to GIS for
map-based data presentation of property
related information was a key driver
required to secure IEG grant monies. The
implementation of eGGP realised other
benefits to Dacorum with improvements
in customer service, allowing information
to be shared with other partners and
elimination of inefficient multiple GIS
platforms and databases.

www.ggpsystems.co.uk

History of GIS at Dacorum
The Business Case: Corporate
The Business Case: Departmental
Nineveh Business Case Findings

Financial benefits
Within the specific eGGP
implementation that Nineveh
investigated, annual savings of £60,000
were identified in addition to one off
savings of £7,000. Initial one off costs
were £73,000, with annual costs of
£12,000. In the first five years savings
amount to £168,000 with ongoing
annual savings estimated at £48,000.
Subsequent enhancements within
Estates, Landscapes and Recreation will
deliver estimated savings of £112,000
with initial costs of £48,000, providing a
five year saving of £512,000.

John Worts, Corporate ICT Service Support Manager
4

Case
Study:
Dacorum Borough Council

Overview

Dacorum Borough Council has successfully implemented a corporate
Geographic Information System (GIS) from GGP Systems. Originally used in
Environmental Health the GGP GIS replaced an ESRI ArcView GIS used in Planning
while GGP’s NGz software was introduced in the Corporate Information Section
to manage the Council’s Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG).